


1994

by QueenofBaws (Sisterwives)



Category: Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: Allusions to Angela's backstory, Allusions to Violence, Allusions to childhood trauma, Character Study, Gen, No graphic or specific depictions of Angela's backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 13:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11579364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sisterwives/pseuds/QueenofBaws
Summary: The town calls to people in its own way, and it manages to lure them in more often than not. That isn't to say that its methods are unchanging. No, Silent Hill has many ways and many faces, and no two of its denizens will ever see it in quite the same way. A little character study of how Silent Hill may appear to the characters in SH2.





	1994

James Sunderland is twenty nine when he steps foot out of his car and into Silent Hill. He is young enough to be foolhardy and impulsive, but old enough to recognize right from wrong, and he knows something is _wrong_ the second the air hits his face.

Dawn has just begun to settle in, rolling across the lake like waves of fog. He leans against the rest stop’s guardrail as he looks out across Toluca’s waters, trying to spot the pinprick gleam of the lighthouse, trying to gather his thoughts, trying to remember something dancing just on the periphery of his mind. There’s a photograph in the pocket of his jacket, tucked safely between the folds of a worry-worn letter written in the curling script he still sometimes sees when dreaming.

Something in the air threatens a cold snap, bringing him back to his senses. He runs a hand through his hair before walking back to his car. The map is where he left it, lying open on the driver’s seat, colors still so bright and vibrant that he can barely believe it’s weathered the years since his last visit.

This is where he spent his honeymoon, spent the best days of his life. He and Mary had been so happy in the little resort town, watching the sun rise and set over the water, listening to the happy chatter of tourists in shops, watching butterflies alight on flowers in Rosewater Park. The two of them had been _so_ happy… _so, so happy_. And they could be happy again, he knew. It would just take a little time.

The town smells of greenery and the promise of rain, and the dampness of the air and streets seems to suggest that it always has. It feels heavy in his lungs, almost as though he’s swallowing mouthfuls of Lake Toluca’s cool water with each step. The thought makes him suddenly thirsty.

Along the streets, the doors and windows of shops have been eaten through with rust, leaving dark red smudges like drying blood. There are no other people, no other voices. Silent Hill is silent, even its more ambient sounds muffled by the thick fog. It's as though he’s hearing his own footsteps from underwater, or from through a downy pillow, everything somehow quiet and calm.

He has no time to stop and consider how odd this is, how odd it _all_ is. James is a man possessed, and his purpose is singular: He is here to find his wife. But of course, Mary is dead now—dead at the hands of that damned disease—and the fact is as stomach-turning to him as the rotting stench coming from the back of his car. She sent him a letter, though, and dead people can’t do that, so maybe she isn’t as far-gone as he had feared. Maybe he _can_ find her, maybe he can be _with_ her again, maybe he can remember the horrible thing dancing just on the edge of his memory.

He has high hopes.

You see, this is not James Sunderland’s first time to the town, but he has known for quite some time that it will, inevitably, be his very last.

\---

Eddie Dombrowski is twenty three when he finds himself in Silent Hill. He’s young enough to turn his life around; he’s young enough not to realize how badly he _needs_ _to_.

The afternoon sun is only just beginning to heat the pavement by the time the van chugs into the parking lot. There’s something wrong with the goddamn transmission, anyone with ears can tell that much, but the fingers of rust climbing up from the undercarriage speak of rot yet unseen. There’s something wrong with its _guts,_ too, all the complicated shit inside. It lists to the left these days, so he parks at a slant, barely sparing it a second thought.

He kicks the door open to combat the sticky latch, hefting himself out of the seat and onto the cement. With a curt jerk, he slams the door shut behind him and fans himself with his hat. There’s a quieter sound as the girl he traveled with closes her door as well, but his thoughts are far from her—as far as they can get.

No, his thoughts are back home, flashing red and blue. He narrows his eyes against the sun and walks around back of the van, trying to shake the stiffness out of his joints from the long drive. He had tried not to think too hard about what happened back there at first. Tried not to think about the noises, mostly. Nowadays, he found he didn’t mind. It’s not like he did anything _wrong_ , not really. Nothing half as bad as what happened to _him_.

The girl was already running off, and when he yells after her, she only responds that he’s gonna “slow her down” before she disappears around a bend. And Eddie could be wrong, but he swears in the echo of her voice he can hear that she’d thrown a “Fatso” for good measure, the brat. _That_ had been a mistake. A _big_ one. She had promised this would be a special place, a _quiet_ place, and so he’d agreed to drop her off; now, though…now he’s thinking of taking root here, if only for a few days. He gets so tired of wandering.

But he realizes immediately that the girl was _lying_ , the little bitch. This isn’t a nice place, this isn’t a _quiet_ place, this is Hell on Earth. The town is grey and freezing despite how hot the parking lot had been, and his breath plumes out in heavy clouds in front of him. There is no sun, either, even though it had been right over his head when he arrived. Instead, there are streetlights that are too _bright_ , reminding him of the damn high school football stadium, and the very instant that thought settles into his brain, he can hear the far-off hoots of fans in stands.

He wants to turn around, wants to _leave_ , but finds there is a sudden mass of darkened silhouettes blocking the way he came. Even in the blinding light of the streetlamps, they somehow elude him, but he can hear their _voices_ , their damn _voices_ , louder than gunfire. He turns to walk away from them, but he can hear them laughing now, laughing endlessly, and his mouth fills with the taste of blood and fear.

As he passes under one of the lights, Eddie Dombrowski casts his first shadow on the streets of Silent Hill. After today, he won’t cast any at all.

\---  
  
Angela Orosco is nineteen when she reaches Silent Hill. She is older and wiser than her years, but that wisdom has made her nervous.

She had refused to leave until the sun stood high and bright in the sky. It’s safer in the light, she tells herself, and hurriedly shuffles her way out from the back of the bus. Everything is safer in the light. But as the bus rolls away and she takes her first tentative steps into the town, she notices the dark clouds on the horizon.

Silent Hill smells like soot and sap, and she prays that the darkness beginning to blot out the sun carries with it the promise of rain. She needs it, if only to wash away whatever embers are crackling in the woods, filling her lungs with the acrid sting of smoke. She wants to stop smelling the trees in the air, _needs_ to stop smelling the trees in the air, because the scent of the forest sets her teeth on edge.

She searches the graveyard for her family, but she is the only shape in the mist she is _convincing_ herself is fog. It can’t be smoke, it just _can’t_. They were supposed to be here, she was supposed to find them here, she _has_ to find them here. Mama had promised her father and brother would be there, she _promised_ , but they weren’t. That meant…that meant they were somewhere else.

The thought slithers into her mind and tangles there, becoming malignant and hungry, and it takes only a quiet snap of a twig nearby to send her sprinting out of the cemetery. By the time the gravel path becomes concrete beneath her, her lungs are burning, her feet are burning, her skin is burning—everything is _burning_ and raw from exertion, from _fear_. There are tears carving sooty tracks down her cheeks, and she tries to catch her breath but just keeps coughing from the smoke.

Something is on fire, and she can no longer pretend as though the clouds blotting out the sunlight are fog from the lake. She can hardly breathe, even as she pulls the turtleneck of her sweater up over the lower half of her face. Her eyes are burning from tears, from heat, from terror, but even though her doubled vision she can see the shadows creeping closer.

Just there, under a parked car; back behind the dumpster in the alley; peering out of the flower shop’s window. In the smoke, they’re black and featureless, but she knows they are _there_ —she knows they’re _waiting_ until she drops her guard. They’ll watch and they’ll sit and they’ll bide their time until she stops looking for a second—all it takes is a second—and then they’ll be upon her.

So she runs, and she runs, and she _runs,_ until she thinks she might asphyxiate. Angela Orosco has been here before, so she knows her way through the streets. She won’t be leaving.

\---

Laura is eight when she finally makes it to Silent Hill. She just had a birthday last week, so really she guesses she’s still _mostly_ like seven, but she’s been through enough to know that how old you are doesn’t really say anything about how _grown-up_ you are.

It hadn’t been a very good birthday, really. She figures it was good in the sense that she wasn’t in the hospital anymore, but it was really, really bad because Mary hadn’t been able to celebrate it with her. But that’s why she was here—to find Mary. She still had her letter tucked away in her pocket, even though she mostly had it memorized by now. Mary’s pretty, curly writing had said she’d be _here_ , in her special place. Silent Hill. So she’d come here to find her and…well, be with her. Mary had _said_ she was going to adopt her—well, that she had _wanted_ to adopt her—but those two things were pretty much the same, right?

She runs out of the van as soon as it’s parked, sticking her tongue out at Eddie before skipping down the path to town. He hadn’t been _too_ bad, and he _had_ driven her there, but she didn’t like him all the same. Besides, she has to find Mary, and the town is probably pretty big, if it’s anything like Ashfield.

As she starts to grow tired of walking on rocks and twigs, the path widens into a street and she cheers, hurrying ahead with the kind of excited energy only eight-year-olds can muster up.

When she finally sees the streets of Silent Hill, she gasps out loud, bringing her hands to her mouth in surprise.

 _Mary was right_.

It’s the most beautiful place she’s ever seen—the sun high in the sky, making the colors in the shop windows pop and glitter; flowering ivy climbing up brick buildings; bright advertisements for Lakeshore Amusement Park plastered to signboards.

She runs along ahead, looking into each window as she passes, pressing her face to the glass. When she finds Mary, they’re going into each and every one of the stores to try on clothes and have snacks and buy books. She has to be close, she just _knows_ it. 

Though she knows so much about it from her hour-long talks with Mary, this is Laura’s very first visit to Silent Hill. It will not, by any stretch of the imagination, be her last.


End file.
